Stanza 2 Summary

Lines 5-6

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today

• We don't know about you, but when we think of a purple host, we imagine going to a party at Grimus's house.
• Again, though, our weird free-associating is probably not what Dickinson was on about.
• Instead, she's using "Host" to mean a large group, probably in reference to a bunch of people.
• We can guess that much because this host "took the Flag," which sounds like fun to us.
• Did you ever play Capture the Flag as a kid (or maybe as a tween paintballer)? It's a competition where two teams try to outmaneuver each other in order to steal the other team's flag.
• It's also a pretty accurate reinvention of conventional warfare, in which two sides meet on a field in order to take over the other's camp and remove their status symbol (the flag).
• The importance of the flag probably explains why it's capitalized here, too.
• In this case, Dickinson describes the winners as "the purple Host," giving them two distinctions.
• Distinction 1: like "Flag," the "Host" is capitalized, lending that word added importance. Capitalizing odd words for emphasis is a classically Dickinsonian move. Check out "Calling Card" for more.
• Distinction 2: this Host is purple. Maybe they're fans of Prince? More likely, the color purple is meant to convey a sense of honor.
• Traditionally, purple was a color reserved for royalty or nobility, so this particular host is an important, honorable, and victorious group—good for those guys.

Lines 7-8

Can tell the definition
So clear of victory

• Line 7 picks after the enjambment of line 6 to let us know that these victorious soldiers may be winners, but they can't give us a definition.
• Remember that this stanza started with the word "Not" back in line 5, so we know now that not one of these guys can give us a definition.
• More specifically, they can't give us the definition of… "victory." Even though they're all big winners, they can't do it as clear as… someone else, anyway. We're not told in this stanza.
• We should point out what's going on in line 8, though, since the syntax is funky. Maybe Dickinson was a Prince fan after all.
• The "So" here is better thought of as… "as." In other words, what we have here in this stanza is a comparison. Essentially, Dickinson's saying, "No one in this victorious army could define victory as clearly ("So clear") as…" and then we don't get the comparison before the stanza break.
• Instead, we have another enjambment, so we're left to rush off to the poem's third and final stanza. Off we go…
  …right after we point out that the rhyme and rhythms of this stanza kind of, sort of match up with the first. We say more about that in "Form and Meter."